CO of USS The Sullivans Relieved

Yes. Nimitz was fond of the saying, and backed it up with action, that “Every dog deserves a second bite”.

21 posted on 05/27/2010 3:27:11 AM PDT by rlmorel (Radical Muslims are just liberals who believe in Allah instead of The State.)

Didn’t Halsey run his DD aground before WW2? His career survived that I think.
I read from www.StrategyPage.com that the rate of Navy Captains being relieved of command was at an all time high....maybe due to “zipper failure”.

22 posted on 05/27/2010 3:46:04 AM PDT by DeusExMachina05 (I will not go into Dhimmitude quietly.)

Red Bouy to Port SIR!
Oh, never mind just keep going...

"Hey, Meatball! Am I seein' things or are we about to run over our own tow line?!?"
Meatball: "That's crazy, we can't be... we are about to run over our own tow line! What are they doin' up there?"

23 posted on 05/27/2010 4:04:52 AM PDT by mkjessup (Kids say the darndest things ... In Memory of Art Linkletter, 1912 - 2010, R.I.P. Sir.)

The poster who said hitting a buoy can cause a lot of damage on a tin can is right, depending on the speed and where it hits. Some of those buoys can be quite large and substantial.

However, this hold nothing compared to the grounding of the USS Missouri at Hampton Roads back in 1950.

Captain Brown, her new CO, was taking her out to sea for only the second time. As they were heading down the channel, Capt. Brown increased speed to 15 knots, which was exceedingly fast for that area, even more so for a ship that size. When he gave the command to increase speed, one of the officers opined that it was a little fast for that area, and the Captain simply issued the command.

So, the 57,000 ton battleship was cruising through shallow water with a new captain at high speed. When the ship went to the wrong side of a channel marker, the two officers down in the chart room looked out the porthole and seeing they were in the wrong place on the wrong side, did a collective "Huh?"

Up on the bridge, there were a variety of people ranging from Quartermasters to the XO running around waving their arms and trying to convince the Captain the ship was in peril, but the Captain did not believe any of them.

As the ship entered the shoal, the bottom was very muddy, extremely slick and sloped very gently and gradually. As a result, the battleship ran aground doing 15 knots, and nobody on the ship even knew the ship was aground, so slick was the mud, so gradual was the burrowing, so gentle was the incline, that the ship very nearly came to a complete halt, and the first indication that the ship was aground was the rising temperatures in engineering as intake valves became clogged.

To make things even worse, she had been run aground at an extremely unusual high tide. It couldn't have been worse. They ended up offloading EVERYTHING from the ship (that must have been one hell of an Alpha party) fuel, ammo, food, anything that could be moved. They used sixteen tugs, four on each side alternatively rocking her side to side, four at the bow and four astern. They also had divers in hard suits underwater with fire hoses spraying jets of water trying to break the suction of the gooey mud. Eventually, they got her free a couple of weeks later.

Some Air Force or Army pilots got into hot water for a stunt they pulled. This happened in full view of a busy road, so there were people and reporters all the time, and a new helicopter hovered over the bow of the stranded ship, lowering a sign on a rope that said "Need a lift?" or something like that. Unfortunately, a reporter happened to be nearby and snapped a picture which ended up in the newspaper. The authorities were not amused...:)

(on this one below, note how far out of the water her stern is! She got 'grounded good'!)

24 posted on 05/27/2010 4:08:05 AM PDT by rlmorel (Radical Muslims are just liberals who believe in Allah instead of The State.)

Busted. He’ll never make admiral. Time to retire.

Admiral? He'll never even make 0-6.

25 posted on 05/27/2010 4:09:56 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur

"What are they doin' up there?"

Caine Mutiny FTW...

26 posted on 05/27/2010 4:10:23 AM PDT by Jonah Hex ("Never underestimate the hungover side of the Force.")

To: Jacquerie; GATOR NAVY

>>> Yeah, IIRC Chester Nimitz lead a four ship squadron of destroyers aground in heavy fog at high speed while attempting to enter San Francisco Bay.

The DESCRON running on the beach was a separate incident years afterward. Previously Lt Nimitz did run his destroyer aground in the Philippines. He was punished but after several years in purgatory was allowed the opportunity to redeem himself. No “one mistake and out”.

Not referring to any one incident but it generally appears to me the Navy will someday pay a price for 1) devouring it’s seed corn, and 2) rewarding with Admirals stars those officers who never take a risk while making it suicidal for any aggressive captain.

Pictures of the Hondo Point disaster at the link. It’s quite a story. 8 September 1923, when seven nearly new U.S. Navy destroyers and twenty-three lives were lost.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/ev-1920s/ev-1923/hondapt.htm

27 posted on 05/27/2010 4:32:13 AM PDT by tlb

Thanks, Iowa, for the photo - these guys remind us of what we should be grateful for..especially this Memorial Day ...even though the POS CinC is a loser of the worst order, we still have a lot to be grateful for...Happy Memorial Day to you!

28 posted on 05/27/2010 6:18:24 AM PDT by matginzac

Wow. Thanks for the history lesson. Good stuff.

29 posted on 05/27/2010 6:24:49 AM PDT by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)

To: DeusExMachina05

A lot of these folks have made higher command because of who they know, that they’ve been oh so PC and that they haven’t “risked” anything...it’s inside influence, not competence...so USN, you reap what you sow...just sayin’....

30 posted on 05/27/2010 6:25:18 AM PDT by matginzac

“On 7 July 1908, Decatur entered Batangas Harbor south of Manila Bay. Nimitz apparently estimated the ship’s position, rather than taking bearings, but failed to account for tidal variances, consequently, Decatur grounded on a sand bar at about the mid point in the first watch, and remained fast. U.S. Army Transport Wright failed in four tries to pull the warship free. Ultimately, the steamer Buena Lurte, alerted to Decatur's plight, pulled the torpedo boat destroyer free during the mid watch on 8 July. Nimitz duly reported the incident, and a general court martial, convened on board Denver (Cruiser No. 14) at Cavite, Philippines, arraigned and tried him on a under a charge of “culpable inefficiency in the performance of duty.” Due to his previously spotless record and the poor conditions of the available charts of the bay, however, the board reduced the charges, finding him “guilty in a less degree than charged...of neglect of duty,” on 1 August 1908. He received a letter of reprimand from the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Force in Philippine Waters.”

In the Philippines, not San Francisco. No fog. And only the ship he was commanding.

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/n5/nimitz.htm

31 posted on 05/27/2010 7:24:18 AM PDT by Cheburashka (Stephen Decatur: you want barrels of gunpowder as tribute, you must expect cannonballs with it.)

Thanks, nice picture. Seen the movie ( Fighting Sullivan’s) a number of times. Was on TCM a few months ago. Brings out the emotions

32 posted on 05/27/2010 7:44:53 AM PDT by captbarney

To: Richard Kimball

I always found that to be an amazing story.
It has everything...lots of variables, a big, gray hunk of historic and impressive steel, arrogance, ignorance, brass hats, speed, water, bewilderment, people running around waving their hands, engineering, tugboats...I always thought the story about the helicopter pilots was funny and instructive. I think they got screwed for it, but they were just trying to yuk it up.

They didn’t have the slightest premonition that was going to land them in hot water.

33 posted on 05/27/2010 8:03:48 AM PDT by rlmorel (Radical Muslims are just liberals who believe in Allah instead of The State.)

To: Hillarys Gate Cult

Isn’t that ship also a high profile command not just any Commander would get?

Not particularly. DDG-68 is a Flight I 13 year old ship. Hopefully they aren't given to idiots but these ships are the majority of O-5 command billets right now.

34 posted on 05/27/2010 1:42:18 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY ("The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." -Dennis Prager)

35 posted on 05/27/2010 1:43:52 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY ("The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." -Dennis Prager)

Actually Bahrain is IALA Region A so red buoys are to port inbound. You're still not supposed to hit them though...

36 posted on 05/27/2010 1:47:58 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY ("The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." -Dennis Prager)

Actually, there is not much different in this case. The Navy has ALWAYS had this attitude towards groundings and such. Always.

There have always been some skippers who found a way not to get relieved, and others who didn’t have a prayer. I know when I was on the Kennedy, we collided with the USS Bordelon, mangling her badly enough to get her decommissioned, but the skipper got another command.

It has always been nearly uniformly “one mistake and out” with groundings. My dad was a thirty year naval officer, and I have had this conversation with him about this very subject. He had served on a lot of boards of inquiry over his career, and he told me that was always it. You might not be found culpable, but those people never went as high as fast, and rarely got command again.

You can apparently run a crappy ship and get promoted, but running that crappy ship aground gets the attention of the promotion boards.

37 posted on 05/27/2010 6:12:11 PM PDT by rlmorel (Radical Muslims are just liberals who believe in Allah instead of The State.)

I live in Cedar Falls, IA, adjacent to Waterloo, where the Sullivans were from. They have a big convention center named for them here, as well as a full military museum, with the history of the Sullivans as its’ centerpiece, along with a P-51D Mustang dangling from the ceiling of the place.

38 posted on 05/27/2010 6:15:33 PM PDT by QualityMan (Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.)

To: Non-Sequitur

39 posted on 05/27/2010 6:56:42 PM PDT by rbosque (11 year Freeper! Combat Economist.)

I was on the third USS Juneau, LPD-10, and there was still a connection to the first Juneau and the Sullivans. Juneau was decommissioned a couple of years ago and it will probably be a long time before there is another one, if there ever is.

40 posted on 05/27/2010 8:59:16 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY ("The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." -Dennis Prager)

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